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Astrophobia simulates being stranded aboard a spaceship that has been infested by replicants. The replicants are a dreaded race of space faring larvae that enter the human brain via the ear canal and feeds on the genetic information. This allows them to withdraw and enter their pupation phase where they grow into a perfect replica of the victim. In the early stages the replicants have no knowledge of their true origin and firmly believe themselves to be the person that they are resembling, they only feel a strange urge to
reproduce. This is how the replicants propagate their species.
If the replicant creature is confronted by the original human source it is prone to fits of uncontrollable rage that it immediately forgets after the incident is resolved. Usually with the death of the original host. When the replicants reach a critical mass they have been known to wipe out entire civilizations.
As the story begins the captain has been found dead, with the captain staring down at his own corpse, his treasured snow globe in hand, stained with blood. The First Officer quickly dispatches the Replicant with a searing ray of superheated plasma from her trusty sidearm, but she and the rest of the crew already know that it is too late. Where there is one, there is always more. With a heavy heart the First Officer orders red alert and directs the crew to the escape shuttle. At the airlock, drama inevitably unfolds. Everyone is painfully aware that no replicant can be allowed to reach Earth. Emotions run high and the air is rife with paranoia as the crew argue over who is or isn’t a hideous space mutant. Anyone can be a replicant and it sure as hell isn’t you.
You’re going back to earth.
RULES
Each crew member begins with ten credibility chips and the goal of the game is to reduce your opponent’s credibility to zero. It is recommended that you play Astrophobia with 6 players, down to a minimum of 3.
Setup
Each player starts with:
1. Four “action” cards (“SOLO,” “TEAM,” “ACCUSE,” and “DEFEND”)
2. One passive action card (“NO TARGET”), this card is played with the DEFEND card only.
3. Six character cards. Every player picks a character from the roster. There are ten characters to choose from (“Doctor,” “First Officer,” “Janitor,” “Chef,” “Engineer,” “Diplomat,” “Science Officer,” “Navigator,” “Comm. Officer” and “Security Chief”). The remaining 4 character cards are discarded before the game.
4. One “Trait Card”, these cards give players a modifier to their damage output or other bonuses (role playing these traits is recommended for a more immersive experience).
5. One “secret” card each (“HUMAN,” or “REPLICANT”) to be randomly drawn by each player from the shuffled deck. DO NOT LOOK AT THIS CARD YET.
6. Ten Credibility Chips (CCs).
Play
1. Players can communicate publicly through word and gesture only. Players are not allowed to whisper, make gestures that are not visible to all other players, or to communicate through other means such as written notes or showing some of their cards.
2. Each turn, players choose one action card and one target card in secret.
3. When everyone has made up their mind, all of the players reveal their actions simultaneously and resolve the results (see the Actions section below). Don’t forget your trait bonuses!
4. When a player runs out of chips, that player is “killed” for being a replicant. The next time a player is killed the first player who died may look at his or hers “secret card”.
5. If a dead player holds one of the replicant cards he or she comes back into the game at half credibility when another player is killed. Clearly the one they killed was the replicant, right? A player can only come back ONCE per game.
6. If at the end of a turn, only one or two players are left, those players win. If one of them holds one of the “REPLICANT”-cards the crew has failed and humanity is doomed.
Actions
1. The “target” of an action is the player whose character card matches the card you played with the action.
2. SOLO – A solo attack against the target. The target discards one chip.
3. TEAM – A team-up attack against a target. If two or more players use this action against the same target, the target must discard two chips for each TEAM attacker that targets him. If only one player uses a TEAM attack against a particular target, the TEAM attack has no effect.
4. ACCUSE – A heavy handed accusation towards one of the players. If two or more players use this action against the same target that player is successfully accused of being a replicant and killed, despite whatever amount of chips he or she might have on hand. If only one player uses the ACCUSE gambit against a particular target, the accuser will lose 5 chips for his outrageous accusations. If two or more players uses ACCUSE against a particular target, and that target uses the DEFEND action, then all accusing players loses 5 chips each.
5. DEFEND – This is a defensive action and must be played with the “NO TARGET” card, instead of a character card. The total number of chips you must discard this turn is halved, rounded down. However, if no other player targeted you, you must discard one chip. If you play the DEFEND card against an ACCUSE gambit you gain 1 CC up to a maximum of ten.
CHARACTERS
The First Officer
You are “Number One”, the captain’s second in command. It was you who killed the replicant captain and it was you who ordered the evacuation. You are used to being obeyed without question, a person of authority and unbending professionalism.
The Doctor
As the ships physician you enjoy everyone’s respect, sure the odd malpractice turned a few sour faces during this two year mission. But when practicing frontier medicine in the deepest regions of space you can’t expect every surgical endeavour to be an elegant one. You are confident that before his tragic passing away, the captain had learned to enjoy his third nostril.
The Chief of Security
You are the person holding the gun, the very symbol of might makes right. Security is your life and you love to make your co-workers and employers feel secure, secure in the notion that everyone around you is secure because you’re holding the gun.
The Engineer
You can’t work miracles, but you can certainly keep a starship running indefinitely on elbow grease and dubious spare parts from boxes labelled “Made in Space-China”. You are used to thinking on your feet and to do what needs to be done with the materials on hand.
The Chef
You are more than a mere purveyor of edibles. You are the intergalactic keeper of the mouth-watering magnificence that is humanity’s culinary threshold. Where would they be without your sumptuous stews, your prolific profiteroles or your heroic hors d’oeuvres? Nay, you are an artiste, a true duke of delicacies. The flavours of earth have been your palette and the picture you have painted your crew every single day is one of glorious and glowing patriotism.
The Janitor
Every star cruiser needs a dedicated Janitor. Sure you may cut a few corners here and there, when certain members of the crew keep leaving crumbs of muffins and pastrami around the reactor housing you’re not about to take that crap to the recycling plant, not when there’s a perfectly good impromptu waste-disintegrator chamber just on the other side of the Geiger counter. What really counts, is that the floor tiles on board are always kept that special kind of shiny-matte, that reflects so ominously in the dim blue-ish light that you always get on board space ships.
The Diplomat
Yours is a vocabulary that can shame a thesaurus, your high society mannerisms and soft spoken charm makes you an excellent representative of humanity. You can sway alien warlords, seduce alien royalty and blend into high society on more than 50 different planets.
Science Officer
The universe is an open book to you, a book of SCIENCE. Knowledge is the only thing that matters to you and your crew mates are little more than ANTS… I mean a… distraction. During this two-year mission you have expanded, not only your understanding of the underlying mechanics of the universe, but the understanding of the whole of HUMANITY. One day they will all come to see reason.
Comm. Officer
You love communication, it’s just so intimate-like. You know every crew members deepest secrets. You have user accounts on every significant social media outlet in the galaxy. Sometimes there is some agitation when you forgo your duties to update Spacebook, but you feel in your heart that the crew knows that if you didn’t tweet it, it never happened.
Navigator
I FLY A SPACESHIP BABY. You are every hot shot pilot stereotype rolled into one glorious hole, I mean whole. You know this part of space like the back of your hand. You could fly this two year mission blindfolded. You were the pilot that did the Kessel run in less than five parsecs. You were, ah, you get where I’m going with this.
 
About Filip Frandsen
2014 Graphics
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